Better Off Dead: (Victor the Assassin 4) (25 page)

They converged on them from two sides – one twenty metres to Victor’s left, the other twenty-five to his right – weaving their way between parked vehicles with fast, confident movement. The closest man had a tall, bulky frame but was faster than the other man, who was small and lithe.

Gisele was already shuffling lower in her seat before Victor could say, ‘Stay down.’

He put the car into reverse and backed out of the parking space, swinging the wheel clockwise to put him facing in the direction of the nearest exit while he cranked down the driver’s window.

The big guy, now sixteen metres away, reached under his sports jacket. The smaller man continued to sprint their way.

Victor changed into first gear, kept hold of the wheel in his left hand while he drew out the SIG with his right. The tyres squealed and smoked. He extended his arm out of the open window next to him and fired twice.

Both bullets struck the door panel of a large SUV inches from the big guy, who startled at the impact, momentarily slowing him as he pulled out an MP5k from under the jacket. Victor would have shot at him again but he had already accelerated out of line of sight.

Automatic gunfire roared in response.

Holes puckered the safety glass of the rear windscreen and blew out the back-seat door window behind Victor. Gisele covered her head with her arms and hands.

The road brought them closer to the second man, who had braced himself into a firing position, crouching and leaning on the hood of a small car.

Victor didn’t hear the pistol shots over the noise of the MP5K but he felt the reverberations of bullets thumping into the car’s bodywork. The wing-mirror glass exploded and showered Victor with tiny shards that struck his arm, shoulder and face. He flinched and squinted to protect his eyes, lurching in his seat away from the spray of glass, involuntarily turning the steering wheel.

He recovered in time to stop the car crashing, but dented a wheel arch against a parked minivan. Metal screeched against metal.

Victor ducked down in his seat, returning fire as he passed the closest gunman. Rounds continued to strike the Renault. In his rear-view mirror he saw the big guy with the MP5K rush out into the road fifteen metres behind him and flames spit out of the weapon’s muzzle.

Holes blew through both windscreens, spreading cracks across the safety glass, impeding Victor’s view. He felt a tyre blow.

‘Brace yourself.’

He waited a few seconds until he had put some distance between the Renault and the two gunmen, then slammed on the brakes and pulled the handbrake and was jumping out of the car before it had stopped moving.

He kept low and ushered Gisele to follow him out of the same door because it was further away from the gunmen than her own. She crawled over the seats and Victor pulled her out.

‘
Go
.’

He fired off a couple of shots while Gisele ran as fast as she could for the count of five, then he ran after her, heading to the exit, counting off seconds in his head, picturing the smaller gunman giving chase, then stopped, spun around and dropped to one knee as he extended the SIG and brought his left hand up for stability, the iron sights of the gun lining up over the pursuing mercenary, who had moved out of cover to give chase.

The man’s momentum carried him forward as bullets hit him in the chest, shoulder and finally face. He dropped to the ground, leaving blood, brains and chunks of skull sliding down windscreen glass.

Victor moved to intercept the guy with the sub-machine gun, but he wasn’t there.

Instead there was nothing but rows and rows of vehicles.

He stopped and signalled for Gisele to do the same. He motioned for her to get down between vehicles and he dropped into a push-up position, lying on his front to peer beneath the cars. The asphalt was cold and hard and wet under his palms. He saw no feet or legs, but his line of sight was interrupted by numerous wheels.

If he couldn’t see his attacker, then the reverse must also be true.

He stayed down for a moment, thinking. The big guy wasn’t stalking closer, keeping low and hidden until he initiated his attack, because that would only work if Victor was stationary. Once he ran, he would quickly get out of range with his enemy too low to see him. So the gunman wasn’t trying to get closer for an ambush. He was trying to stay alive.

No point dying for a pay cheque that couldn’t be cashed. Victor lived by the same principle. But the merc would still want his fee, which meant he was calling for backup.

Victor hurried over to where Gisele waited.

‘Are you okay?’

Gisele nodded. ‘I’m fine.’

He stood and looked around. Still no sign of the gunman but he saw a man frantically trying to unlock the door of an old MG convertible, but he was too scared by the recent gunfire to get the key in the lock. Victor dashed over, coming up behind the man and relieving him of his keys. The man stood trembling with fear. Victor put a hand on his shoulder and forced him to the ground.

‘Hide,’ Victor told him.

It was advice that could save the man’s life. A fair trade for his car, Victor thought. He waved Gisele over, but it was too late, because he saw a black Range Rover pull into the car park.

They ran, heading south, away from the Range Rover, turning side-on to get between cars until they were clear of the car park and facing a dock where the vehicle wouldn’t be able to pursue. Either those inside would be forced to jump out and chase on foot, or the 4x4 would turn around and try to get ahead of them – or both. Any of the scenarios worked for Victor because it would mean a divided force.

He followed the waterline to the east, Gisele at his side, passing the hotel again but out of sight of the crowds and potential onlookers. They crossed the dock on a footbridge that ran alongside the road bridge, ending up on an empty strip of concrete that continued along the elevated road to his right but finished at a dead end of steel fences and vegetation. A foot tunnel led east under the road.

Victor glanced back to see a figure running along the far side of the dock, heading to the footbridge. Muzzle flashes glared bright in the darkness but the range was too great for accurate shots.

‘Through the tunnel,’ he said to Gisele. ‘Hurry.’

The pursuing mercenary made it up to the bridge in time to see the killer disappear. He immediately thumbed his mike. He reported as he ran:

‘Targets are on the south side of the dock, entering a tunnel under the bridge. They’re going to come out on the east side of the road. Repeat: the east side.’

Anderton’s voice replied: ‘Copy that. Stay in pursuit. We’ll head them off.’

The mercenary kept running. He was fast and fit and had crossed the footbridge in less than fifteen seconds. He cut across the strip of concrete and into the tunnel, gun up and ready for an ambush.

Predictably, the tunnel stank of piss. When he saw it was empty of people he sprinted along it, slowing before he reached the far end, wary of a potential ambush, then moved out fast, gun leading. Directly in front of him was the tall chain-link fence marking the boundary of London City Airport. A footpath beside it extended to the north and south. He swept left as he emerged from the tunnel – no one – then right, seeing the girl running, twenty or so metres ahead.

He aimed, but didn’t fire as he saw movement in the corner of his right eye, not from the empty tunnel but from above.

Victor leapt down from the elevated road, crashing into the mercenary, taking him to the ground under his bodyweight, feeling him slacken from the impact. He ripped the gun from the man’s hand, reversed his grip and hammered the pistol’s muzzle down into his eye until it became wedged in the socket and the struggling ceased.

He tore free the dead man’s radio, switched it off, and shouted, ‘Come on.’

Victor and Gisele dashed back through the tunnel, then headed north, on to the footbridge.

‘Down,’ Victor said, because he heard the roar of a powerful V8 engine on the nearby bridge.

They went into low crouches and he saw a Range Rover pass, heading south in the opposite direction. A few seconds later a second Range Rover did the same. It wouldn’t take them long to work out that Victor and Gisele had doubled back.

‘
Run
,’ Victor said.

They sprinted across the bridge and headed north on to a narrow road that fed the hotel’s car park. He left Gisele on the pavement and dashed into the road, straight into the coming traffic, arms waving, dodging a minivan that wasn’t going to slow down in time, then moving in front of a small Peugeot that did, tyres squealing on the damp asphalt.

The driver shouted, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ as Victor circled the bonnet.

The door opened before Victor could reach for the handle. The driver – a big Polish man – was climbing out to confront him, eyes wide with rage.

Victor dropped him to his knees with an uppercut to the solar plexus. He left the man wheezing and gasping and grabbed hold of Gisele’s wrist to drag her around to the passenger door. He opened it and bundled her into the seat, slammed the door and rushed back around to the driver’s side, shoving the kneeling Pole to one side.

The door fell shut under the Peugeot’s momentum as Victor accelerated away. He put his left palm on the top of Gisele’s head and forced her down in the seat because she was sat too upright.

‘Stay down,’ he said. ‘Keep your head lower than the windows.’

She didn’t respond but she didn’t fight or argue. Either she was happy to do as he told her or she was too scared to resist. It didn’t matter as long as she was breathing.

In the rear-view, the Polish man was climbing to his feet and staggering along the road after them. Victor respected his single-mindedness, but he wasn’t about to return the vehicle. He hoped it would still be in one piece by the time the police released it back to the man, but the odds were against it. He cut through the car park and then joined the road that ran between the hotels, heading west.

Wade kept his eyes on the road and the traffic, slowing as they came to a traffic island. Anderton and Sinclair were looking to their left – east – expecting to see the girl and the assassin running alongside the road, having come out of the foot tunnel as reported by Cole and then heading south because there was no escape north or east.

‘Where are they?’ Sinclair spat.

Anderton said, ‘Take the first exit left. That’s the only way they could have gone.’

‘No,’ Sinclair said, shaking his head. ‘We should have seen them.’

She radioed Cole, who had been pursuing on foot: ‘We can’t see them. Report.’

No reply.

‘Cole, answer me. We —’

‘He’s dead,’ Sinclair said. ‘They doubled back. They’re on the opposite side of the dock by now.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because that’s what I’d have done,’ Sinclair answered.

Anderton sighed. ‘Then we’ve lost them.’

Victor pushed the Peugeot as hard as it could take. The engine was weak and the handling non-existent but the car was small and the tyres had decent grip. He weaved it through the traffic, ignoring the blaring of horns and minor collisions he left behind. He knew he was risking attracting the attention of the police – whether via an unmarked vehicle or from a call made by a civilian – but better to be chased by cops than killers. Whoever these guys were, he couldn’t see them shooting through the police to get to him and Gisele. If they had any sense they would back down the moment the police became involved. He wasn’t going to rely on that, however.

Gisele kept low in the seat as he instructed, swaying and sliding as he swerved and braked and accelerated again. When he saw no pursuers he slowed down and took the next turning so he could join the traffic like a regular driver and disappear into the crawl of inner-city vehicles.

Victor glanced at Gisele. ‘Are you okay? Are you injured?’

‘What?’ she whispered, eyes open and blankly staring at a point beyond the dashboard.

She was having a panic attack. Her automated nervous system was crashing. Her lizard brain was caught between fight or flight. The result was paralysis.

‘Just breathe,’ he said, ‘but slowly. Draw in one lungful of air and hold it in the bottom of your chest for as long as you can. Then let it out nice and slow.’

She did. He could feel the fear radiating from her like a tangible energy. He wasn’t sure what to say. Nothing was going to make it vanish. Fear was nature’s purest form of advice. It couldn’t be mastered. To control it took years. He had no advice that could free her from it now.

He put a hand on her arm. The skin trembled beneath his touch. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ he said because it wasn’t okay and it was the truth that scared her, not lies.

She nodded. Maybe she believed him. Maybe she didn’t. She still shook. She had to work through the fear in her own time.

He said, ‘Are you hurt?’

In his peripheral vision he saw her shake her head so he concentrated on the road in front of them and his mirrors. There were no men with guns or black Range Rovers.

‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she said.

‘I can’t stop yet. You’ll have to do it into the footwell.’

Gisele shuffled in the seat, leaning forward, knees parted. She stayed like that for a couple of minutes, but didn’t vomit.

She asked, ‘What do we do now?’

‘For now we keep moving,’ Victor said. ‘After that, I have no idea.’

‘You won’t think less of me if I start crying, will you?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Okay, good,’ she said, voice breaking. ‘Because I can’t hold it back any longer.’

He drove in silence as next to him she cried and cried.

Rain lashed the windows and ran down the glass in chaotic rivulets. Gisele stared at the flowing serpent of headlights beyond, twin red eyes glowing in the darkness. They stared back, malevolent but harmless, threatening violence but delivering none. For now. She inched closer to the man next to her, hoping that while she remained there, no one would hurt her. If she’d felt he would respond she would have leaned against him, encouraging a comforting arm to be wrapped around her. But she stayed rigid in her seat. However much she wanted that embrace, she would not ask for it and show more weakness than she had already.

She hated him for his callousness and criminality. She hated herself more because she needed him. He had proved his loyalty and she could cry because of it, even if it was only because he had liked her mother. Whatever their relationship had been or had not been, it gave him an immovable conviction the likes of which she would not have believed possible. How could someone risk their life for someone they did not know on behalf of someone they had once known? It was a mystery to her, but she was okay with that. Whoever this man was, he did not think or operate like other people. It would be easier to fathom the motivation of an alien.

She knew almost nothing about him and though that had irritated her earlier, now it reassured her because all she understood was that he was someone of strength and resolve, who could deliver extreme violence to protect her from it. He was a spectre more than a person – made of violent energy more than flesh. Flesh could be destroyed. Energy could not.

But she wasn’t like that. She was weak. She was scared.

Gisele stared out at the snaking red eyes blurring through her tears.

If Gisele moved her right hand he took the next right turning. If she moved her left, he headed in that direction. When her hands stayed still in her lap he maintained the same heading. After fifteen minutes they were far away from the hotel, having taken a random route to an unpredictable location.

Victor said, ‘You can sit up now.’

She took a long time to do so, the adrenalin hangover robbing her of strength. ‘Are we safe?’

‘No,’ Victor answered, even though he wanted to say yes. ‘We’re anything but safe.’

She nodded, bottom lip over the top. He saw that she had wanted a different response. Any different response. Offering comfort and reassurance were not his strong points. It occurred to him that he should have entered this as a character; someone more personable and relatable. But he was sharper as himself. Acting a role took effort. Keeping Gisele alive required all of his concentration, but he saw now that it would be easier to have her do exactly as she was told if she liked him. If she thought of him as a friend then she would trust what he said without question. That lack of hesitation might be the difference between life and death. But it was too late now to initiate a charm offensive. She’d seen him kill people. She wouldn’t be able to look past that. No one could. That was why he’d made sure her mother had never known what he did for Norimov. Now, he felt that in deluding Eleanor he had betrayed her.

He noticed that the fuel tank was getting low. He wasn’t planning on keeping the car much longer but he couldn’t be sure a pair of Range Rovers were not going to appear behind him at any moment. If they did, the Peugeot would need fuel. He pulled into the first twenty-four-hour petrol station he saw.

‘I’ll be as fast as I can.’

She was quiet as he climbed out of the vehicle. He didn’t know what she was thinking. He could see the fear and uncertainty in her expression but otherwise it was blank.

He half-filled the tank and paid in cash, keeping his head angled away from the forecourt’s security cameras and then face tilted away from the one behind the cashier. He was more obvious than he would usually be because the cameras were well positioned and top-of-the-line and he was being actively hunted. He saw the young guy behind the desk notice his behaviour but the kid was confused. He hadn’t worked out what Victor was doing. Better to be noted by someone who would forget him within ten minutes than have his face recorded in crystal-clear high-resolution video.

He bought some bags of crisps and chocolate bars from the shelves and an armful of bottled water. He noticed the guy behind the counter smiling to himself, thinking Victor was stoned on account of the junk food and avoiding eye contact in an attempt to hide his vacant gaze. Victor did nothing to convince him otherwise.

Before leaving the garage shop he scanned the forecourt through the glass. No Range Rovers in sight. No gunmen.

He handed her the plastic bag of supplies as he slid into the driver’s seat.

She peered into the bag. ‘I don’t like junk food.’

‘Eat. It’s all full of carbohydrates.’

‘Carbs are the devil.’

‘We need them. You especially. Eat up.’

She sighed and he heard her rummage in the bag.

‘Don’t say anything,’ he said as her mouth opened. ‘Just eat.’

She found a chocolate bar she liked the look of, and bit off a small chunk. She chewed slowly. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘Find somewhere to lie low.’

‘Then what?’

He didn’t answer.

‘Why don’t we simply keep driving?’ she asked. ‘Let’s get out of the city. Never come back.’

‘Where would we go? We don’t have a car. Public transport is risky. People are looking for us.’

She held up her hands. ‘We’re
in
a car.’

‘It’s stolen. We’ll have to ditch it soon.’

‘Why can’t you steal another one? Or we can take a train or go to the airport. Anything.’

‘Not yet,’ Victor said. ‘They’ll expect us to run. They could be watching train stations and airports and following reports of stolen cars. If we’re spotted, it’s over. First we lie low and consider our next move. We can’t risk snap decisions. In the morning, maybe we will leave the country. But it’s a choice we’ll make when I’ve had time to think. Do you have your passport on you?’

She shook her head. ‘It’s at the office. In my desk. I went to a conference in Brussels. I… I knew I shouldn’t have left it there.’

‘That’s a problem then. They’ll know about your workplace.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’

‘I’ll come up with something. But for now, I need you to think.’

She stopped chewing and looked at him, reading his tone. ‘Me? About?’

‘At the hotel, the man who knocked on the door wasn’t trying to kidnap you. Neither were the men in the car park.’

‘I… I don’t understand.’

‘I’d been led to believe they wanted to abduct you, but that’s not what I witnessed. They were trying to kill you. That was an assassination attempt.’

Her mouth hung open and her brow was furrowed. Shock. Disbelief. ‘Why would they want to kill me? You said they wanted to take me to put pressure on Alex. That’s why you’re protecting me. That’s what you told me.’

‘I was wrong. This isn’t about your stepfather. This is about you.’

‘That doesn’t make any sense.
How
can it be about me?’

‘I don’t know, but with a little time you might figure out why this is happening to you.’

‘So you’re saying it’s my fault?’

‘That’s not what I said.’

She pushed her fingers through her hair. ‘Then please explain what the fuck you’re saying?’

‘That there is a woman who wants to kill you,’ Victor said. ‘The people who attacked us in the warehouse and at the hotel are working for a woman with blonde hair and green eyes. She’s British. Do you know anyone like that?’

‘I don’t know. How would I, based on that description? I could have met dozens of women like that, couldn’t I?’

‘Has anyone threatened you?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Any criminals you might have crossed as part of your work? A case you’ve been working on?’

Her head was still shaking. ‘I haven’t worked a single case yet. Don’t you get it? I’m not a qualified barrister. It’s not that long ago that I got my degree. I don’t handle even the most minor of cases, let alone one that might warrant all this. God, there’s nothing I know or have done that could give all these people a reason to try to kill me. If I had, then my whole firm would be under threat too. They wouldn’t single me out. I’m not important.’

‘You are to her. To her you’re so dangerous she will risk everything to kill you.’

The shaking stopped. The eyes were wide. ‘But I’m nobody.’

Victor left her in the car while she ate and walked to the edge of the garage forecourt. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and withdrew the small two-way radio transceiver he’d taken from the dead mercenary. It was a Motorola, an expensive model, with a range of up to ten kilometres. It would be less in a dense urban environment. He couldn’t be sure it would be in range. Only one way to find out.

He powered it on and thumbed the send button.

‘Do you know who this is?’

He waited. For a moment, all he could hear was the sound of tyres splashing through puddles. Then, a woman’s voice came through the speaker.

‘I do know who this is,’ she said. ‘You’re Norimov’s man. The assassin.’

Her voice was distorted and crackling because the signal was weak.

She added: ‘It’s nice to speak to you at last.’

‘Nice is perhaps not the word I’d elect to use,’ Victor said.

‘Even putting luck to one side, I have to admit you’re proving quite the troublemaker.’

‘It wasn’t luck that killed four of your guys tonight.’

A pause, before she replied, ‘Is that why you’re speaking to me now, to gloat? That would be a mistake.’

‘I don’t make mistakes.’

‘Is that so?’ the woman said back. ‘Except for the fact you’re now involved in something that doesn’t –
shouldn’t
 – concern you. That is a monumental mistake on your part.’

The voice was becoming more distorted. They were travelling further away from him and Gisele.

He said, ‘Would you like to have a wager on that?’

She chuckled. ‘Sure, why not? I’ll humour you. What exactly are we betting with?’

‘Your life,’ Victor said and smashed the radio beneath his heel.